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Wednesday, May 15, 2013

New York Style Pizza, From Scratch With Vegetables Toppings

Who doesn’t know about Pizza? Pizza is an oven-baked,
flat, round bread typically topped with a tomato sauce, cheese and
various toppings. Pizza was originally invented in Naples, Italy, and the
dish has since become popular in many parts of the world.

The word Pizza makes our mouth water and adds smiles to
our faces. Therefore before I go ahead I will like to share some fun facts
about Pizza.

The average pizzeria uses roughly 55 pizza boxes per day.

The highest-grossing single-unit independent pizzeria in
the nation, Moose's Tooth Pub and Pizzeria, is in Anchorage , Alaska. Its
annual sales are approximately $6 million.

36 percent of all pizza orders want their pizza topping
pepperoni

94 percent of Americans eat pizza regularly.

Cheese wasn't added to pizza until the late
1800s.

Frozen pizzas were introduced to Americans by the
Celentano Brothersin 1957. At that time, frozen pizzas were only available in
grocery stores.

The largest pizza in the world was made in 1990
at Norwood Hypermarket in South Africa. For the pizza, they used 500 kg of
flour, 800 kg of cheese and 900 kg of tomato puree. The pizza was measured 37.4
meters, enough to secure an entrance in the Guinness Book of Records as the
largest pizza ever.

The most expensive pizza was created by
Domenico Crolla who used edible gold, medallions of venison, sun blush-tomato
sauce, Scottish smoked salmon, lobster marinated in fine cognac and
champagne-soaked caviar. His pizza was sold at auction for charity with price
of about #3000.00.

I hope you all enjoyed reading these facts.
Moving to the recipe, this month’s task from Baking Partnersgroup
was to make pizza. Making pizza from starch only sounds tough but making it is
very simple and fun. I am happy that I got the chance to try my hands on New York
Style Pizza. I was so happy and amazed by its taste and texture. I opted to
make thin crust pizza (Mr. Husband likes it this way) with lots of vegetables
as toppings. All I can say is there is no pizza better then homemade pizza :)

In a bowl combine bread flour, salt, olive oil, yeast, sugar and
add lukewarm water to it and knead well for about 10 -15 minutes just like chapatti
dough. Keep the dough covered for 30 minutes and then knead again. This time
you will reach at a point where the dough will be stretchy and must pass window
pane test.

Divide the dough in 2 equal parts and keep in the Ziploc bag in
the fridge for minimum 24 hours and maximum up to 5 days. Remember to take out
the dough from fridge at least 1 hour before baking (to bring it to room temperature).(I
kept my dough overnight and used it next day)

For the sauce

In a blender blend the canned tomatoes. Do not puree it, blend
to form chunky mixture.

In a pan heat butter and olive oil and when butter melts throw
in grated garlic, oregano, pepper flakes, pinch of salt and cook for 2 minutes.

Add tomato puree, chopped onions, basil sprigs, and sugar and
bring it to simmer. Let it cook for about 1 hour (stiring in between) till the
sauce thickens and reduces t half.

Mix salt and let it cool.

For Baking:

1 hour before
baking; preheat oven to 400F/ 200C. Turn single dough ball out onto lightly
flour surface. Gently press out dough into rough 8-inch circle and then roll
the dough like a roti with rolling pin to form thin crust. Transfer to pizza
pan.

Spread approximately 2/3 cup of sauce evenly over surface of
crust. Add all the vegetables toppings evenly and spread 1/3 of cheese over
sauce evenly.

Bake until cheese is melted with some browned spots and crust is
golden brown and puffed, 10 to 15 minutes or varies depends on your oven